Replacing Odell Beckham Jr. in your fantasy lineup

Odell Beckham Jr. was lost for the year with a torn ACL against the Bengals this past weekend. Andy Behrens and Scott Pianowski break down the loss of OBJ for the Browns while giving you a few names to target on the waiver wire.

Video Transcript

ANDY BEHRENS: I don't think anything on Sunday was perhaps any bigger or more impactful for fantasy than Odell Beckham's season-ending ACL tear. I feel like maybe no fantasy manager out there might feel like Odell Beckham was carrying them exactly, and that's true. But he did enter the week as the overall wide receiver 16. He'd had some moments.

He wasn't exactly a target hog. That's just not gonna happen for anybody in Cleveland, right? About seven targets per game coming in. I mean, we know how Stefanski wants to win. We know how the Browns want to win, and it has a lot to do with the ground game, and it has a little bit to do with tight ends, and it has a lot to do with Baker Mayfield maybe throwing the ball 30 times or less.

So, no, Odell Beckham was not set up for a surefire wide receiver one finish, but that is still a big piece both for Cleveland to lose and for fantasy managers to lose. So before we get into all the replacement options at receiver, why don't we talk specifically a bit about what the Browns are gonna do moving forward?

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: I don't think the loss of Beckham will be as significant as maybe the common idea may be on that. And remember, with Beckham, if you look back on his season, you talk about him being, what, wide receiver 16 or whatever he is. Most of that came from that three-touchdown game against Dallas, and that was the day where he caught a touchdown pass from Landry, who's got that great hose. I want to see a Jarvis Landry pass every week, by the way, because that guy--

ANDY BEHRENS: Seriously.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: --just slings it. And then he had that long end around that iced the game, the 60-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. So even on a day when he scored three times, only one of the touchdowns was from Mayfield. So what I like with Cleveland-- and I guess, again, I'll frame this. I don't want to make this a hot take thing, and I'm not trying to do any grave dancing on Beckham. I think Cleveland may be better suited to absorb this blow and it not to be a kill shot.

Because I like Kevin Stefanski. I think he was the right guy to hire. In a year where so many teams have offensive line problems-- it's so hard to watch a Dallas football game right now because they can't block anybody. They have four non-starters in their offensive line. Cleveland's got a very good offensive line. They're a team that could lose a Nick Chubb and almost not lose a beat because Kareem Hunt is such a good player.

We talked about how well Higgins played. The secondary tight end. So when you combine the offensive line talent here, the depth of the skill players, and the fact that I think they hit a home run when they hired Kevin Stefanski--

Remember, this is the team that came back from the depths of Hue Jackson and Freddie Kitchens. And we're just used to the Browns being mismanaged. It sure seems like they got the hire right for the first time in a while. And I think Cleveland's got a good chance to be a playoff team this year.

ANDY BEHRENS: Let me just throw some other wide receiver names at you from across the league. These are guys who were all rostered in less than 50% of Yahoo leagues, and you just take this any direction you want to go. These are sort of all the guys that I called out in the pickups column.

Sterling Shepard is widely available after being mass dropped when he hit IR, which I totally understand. So he's now about 70% available in Yahoo leagues. Brandon Aiyuk now in a great situation. Obviously, Deebo has the hamstring issue right now. He's about 50% rostered, so he may not be out there in most leagues. But that's my cutoff for this show, so I like to throw him out there.

Cole Beasley having exactly the season that you might have expected from Julian Edelman. Higgins we already mentioned. Tim Patrick. Nelson Agholor coming off a big day and nine targets, and he's got Cleveland up next.

I don't know. Who do you like there? Or maybe it's somebody not listed at all.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Shepard is one of those guys, when he's on the field, I love him. I think he's probably--

ANDY BEHRENS: Yeah.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: --the Giants' best receiver. And this is coming from somebody who really likes Slayton. But Shepard immediately gets back and has an impactful game. I wish I had the nerve to start him on some teams last week because I could have used 13 or 14 points or whatever he got.

So I'm not confident necessarily that Shepard will last the full season because he's had some durability issues. But when he's on the field, I think we're gonna see a lot like the line he gave us against Philadelphia on Thursday. So he'd be my first guy.

And then I gravitate towards Aiyuk because they don't have the same type of luxury to be cute with their receivers. Right now, Deebo Samuels is hurt. And Aiyuk is much like a Samuel, except he runs more downfield routes. So this is the guy that Shanahan's gonna be cooking up plays for all week.

ANDY BEHRENS: I would put Higgins in that group with-- I think I'm probably a little bit more bullish on Cole Beasley. Actually, I'm surprised that Cole Beasley is still only rostered in about 40% of Yahoo leagues. And, granted, he's coming off his best game in terms of catches and yardage, right? It was 11 catches on 12 targets. Just a little bit over 100 yards.

And you're right that the ceiling might not be shockingly high, but the floor is really high. The floor and ceiling are close, I guess, but he's been pretty bankable week in and week out. And Josh Allen does look to him a little bit when they get inside the 15, inside the 10. He's had some nice highlight touchdowns this year.